Maps, Offline + Country Guides and cell phones

I'm looking into map solutions for our April 8 - May 11 trip to France, and I've heard that the Lonely Planet offline maps are good. Seems the new 10th edition is coming out March 15 for $9.99 in digital form. Do I assume correctly that this would be an updated version of the LP guide and that I could download and save for offline use all the maps I'd need? This is my first post. THANKS people! Marcia

Marcia, I'm not too familiar with the Lonely Planet maps. I've been using the Best Travel maps (offline, I believe) and they seem to work quite well. Your title mentions "cell phones", but no specific questions on those? Cheers!

Thanks, Ken. I too have downloaded the Best Travel offline maps app, which looks helpful. (However, I'm still interested in knowing how new the latest Lonely Planet digital guide might be, and what people might think of their offline maps.) My mention of iPhone was mainly because I plan to take my iPhone 4 and use it in airport mode only, I predict - unless, by some miracle it wouldn't be prohibitive to rent one in France and get all my stuff temporarily on it. Sounds a bit far-fetched, nest-ce pas? Marcia

Using your current phone on wifi is your best option. You will find lots of free wifi around, and even if you could find a phone to rent, transferring everything is an unnecessary hassle. I used my non-GSM phone on wifi last year in Spain, and I almost always had a connection available when I wanted it.

@Ken & Marcia Both of you mentioned the Best Travel offline maps app, but I can't seem to find it. Is it for the apple or Android? I have an Android phone and an iPad. Thanks, I've been trying to find some offline maps for my summer trip.
Pam

@Pam, The website for the Best Maps is http://besttravelapp.org/&#35; (I believe they're only available for iOS). I've found them to be very responsive to requests. If I wanted a particular city that they didn't have on the list, I sent them an E-mail and it was uploaded in about an hour or two. Cheers!

Marcia, I wouldn't bother trying to rent a phone in Europe and have all your App's transferred. That would likely be dreadfully expensive, and perhaps not even possible. Whether your iPhone 4 will even work in Europe (except for Wi-Fi) will depend on which cell network you're with? Cheers!

Marcia, I prefer to have a good paper map (ex. 1:1,000,000) on hand and a couple digital sources. The digital sources I use for my iPhone 5 are: - Garmin Western Europe - Ulmon - You can also use TripIt for planning your travels (A+ for this app)
- City Maps 2 Go Just remember to keep your phone in airplane mode for GPS and bring a charger. Ryan

Hi Marcia! Unfortunately, I can't tell you smth for sure about Lonely Planet offline maps. But I know there are lots of offline maps, but not so many for $9.99 For some cities I used offline Google maps. However it's in the past. Now I use MapsWithMe. Discovered it few weeks ago when was going to Luxemburg. Nice app for real! It has all the countries and cities inside, including roads what was the most important thing) It has even offline search. So now I'm the fun #1.
Try it!